There's this idea circulating the internet probably since 2020 that really pushes the idea of homesteading as a solution to government over reach and maintaining individual rights and freedoms. While the desire to run away to a hidden location is greatly appealing to me it seems at its core, essentially selfish.
The reason I think it's essentially selfish is because the main concern is about ourselves and not how to help others that also don't want their food and their medicine taken away. There are people that don't have financial or energy options as some of us do and thats why I'm more inclined to creating sanctuary cities rather than off grid lifestyles. I don't have all the answers, I've just started thinking about this. I know that food is an essential, we currently don't grow enough food in the province of Alberta to sustain us. Housing is another issue, the amount of homes for people is simply not enough, or even big enough homes. Living in a small space can be quite unsustainable for families. What other ideas do you have?
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Its a couple of days before the eclipse and oh my stuff is buzzing. To be fair, I'm a little tired of keeping up with what the global elites are doing. I would way rather know what God is up to than what they are doing. Last year, I was convicted by the verse, "I will not leave you as orphans." (John 14:18) and I remember that now while the world is going crazy. God is going to give us solutions. God is going to show up for us in extraordinary ways, God is not going to leave us alone and leave us to die here by ourselves. He's got a plan. We must remember that He comes back to be our Ruler.
I really feel like the church here in Canada and the States is wrapped up in the political. I really believe that if we began to intercede accordingly that we could shift so much more than signs and billboards will do. That the kingdom of darkness would come crashing down in various places because of the prayers of the saints. Spring pushes and pulls for the upper hand. Winter tends to drag along and be wearisome in leaving
I hope to see it go soon. The unknown awaits. The unheard of is here. It rained and snowed today Its finally quiet here. Soon purple crocuses will poke their delicate heads out of the weary ground, as they herald the coming of warmer days. Steady my heart as the emotions rock it like a ship on wild water. There's so much happening in the atmosphere its hard to keep up, and my prayer continues to be, softly speaking, I need a home, a place to call my own, where my children can thrive and grow. Scripture says that He opens His ears, He remembers as if He could forget. It's wild that He could forget, maybe we think He has forgotten, because the response lingers longer that we would like. The mountains whispered my name
Soft gentle teasing whispers from their crinkled and wrinkled peaks “Come see us.” They extended the invitation To go to the mountains, is to immerse yourself in a place so vast, you lose yourself There is no intimacy with mountains that extend themselves upwards, and defy you get to know them There is no map of where the human foot has touched every place Tim Robinson did not come here and if he did He would have run, For these peaks demand a vigour and a strength that you do not know They are temperamental and fierce, Changing at a moments notice, Snowing when summer should be here. They bow to no one and don’t mind if they are misunderstood But, if you should push yourself, Get past the blunt force winds and push into the rocks You will find many hidden treasures of waterfalls and streams Lakes murky turquoise You swear if you fell into them they would lead you to another world The heart doesn’t realize it The heart begins unknowingly to attach itself in ways unseen Until you cannot rip yourself from the mountain, without great damage Things don’t flow like they used to, and sometimes I miss the person I used to be
I keep telling myself its just a season A God ordained busy Its not that I’m doing too much or disorganized or unkempt It’s that they are little and need so much The smallest one cries as soon as the clock strikes four She cries until her dinner is at the table The oldest will decide its time to be silly, and crazy and wild and jump off of everything I cry out to God and say, I’m sorry for today, I don’t think I talked to You or heard You all day Clear as a bell, I hear it ringing in my ears, “I honour your busy season.” The days don’t flow like they used to, there are big emotions from all that need regulating Hearts that need comforting and bruised knees kissed It’s a God ordained busy season Hello New Year. Sometimes I feel kind of silly blogging. As if somehow its over, but I don't think it is. I don't know if its as popular. Maybe I'm crazy. I've been thinking about making work again, making it here and there, dabbling I guess I would say, trying to figure out how to make it. Sometimes the best of my brain power is used up refereeing small children for the day and by the evening time, I'm wiped of any and all inspiration. But, I feel it coming back.
Lately, I've been thinking about maps. One of my biggest regrets in Ireland was that I didn't get the Tim Robinson map of the various places, such as Connemara and particularly the Burren. His maps were detailed deep maps with archaeological findings, elevation, everything. Nothing really escaped him and he was quite well renowned. My work is always about body and place, how does one impact the other? When we view a landscape, we are a small body encountering a vast landscape, but with a map you can encounter a landscape in a totally different way. Suddenly, the map is folded and is smaller than you, and the body to land dynamic changes. It enables us to take in something much bigger than ourselves and hold it within our hands. With a map we can find a place we might not have noticed while in nature, or we might see something interesting that we didn't even know existed. While paying for my Kananaskis pass this summer I picked up one of those touristy shiny maps that they give you while you're exploring the area. I hung it up in the house, just to see it, get a feel for it and think of the Rockies in a different way. I always find that the Rockies are an interesting place. I haven't been to many spots, but I feel like there are not many thin places around. I may have encountered one perhaps in my three years of being here and it was not strong. When I first saw the mountains I have to express that there was something of mild disappointment. I'm not sure why I always expected that I would love them much more than I really did. In Ireland, the landscape was fairly easy to explore; no animal predators, not much difficulty in navigation, terrain was rugged but accessible and I felt like maybe because of these things it was easy to connect with the land. My body in proportion to the landscape was not so small. I sometimes wonder if the reason its taking me so long to get attached to the Rockies is that their grandeur and majesty make it difficult to get to know them. The terrain is rugged, can be quite inaccessible and difficult in many places, the animal predators are many and the hikes can be extremely lengthy, often only covering a small portion of the mountain or landscape around. My hope is that soon I can move a bit closer to them in order to get to know them better. We picked out our Christmas tree again from the Junior Forest Wardens allotment this year. Every year they offer lodgepole pine and its quite a different tree to put up for Christmas. While we were there for a short while I could feel the longing of my soul looking forward to hiking again soon. It was too busy of a day otherwise we would've gone. There is just a little bit of snow on the ground and the temperature was quite balmy for December. I've taken a break from instagram to get a hold of my blogging and photography again. I'm so behind on so many photos and I want to begin working on some new photography. The mountains are always my favourite thing to look at when they are covered in snow. It suits them much better than bare rock. Snow helps to outline all the details that we otherwise miss and grab our attention with the stark contrast of the white on dark grey. The past couple of months I've had a new awakening to writing and reading about the land again. It's been so long, I must say that I was rather burnt out after my master's degree and the thought of writing and researching one single word made me paralyzed. Leaving Ireland to come back to Canada was tough, finding thin places here is more difficult and the moments to contemplate are mostly interrupted by a wild toddler and crying baby. But sharing the land with people is more important, and this point in my life I am finding the value in family and community. Instead of being self-serving, I have been focusing on serving my family and surprisingly, it's brought a lot of joy. The days are calmer, and flow more smoothly, I am not as tired and have more time to invest in my evenings. Tonight I spent some time painting a scene that I photographed in Bragg Creek, the grass was just so lovely the way that it fell and the tiny kinnikinick berries give a thoughtful surprise from the stump. Once it's done I'll be posting it on the painting page.
I’m looking for my people; my tribe. The people that say, “ I will be the solution Lord.” I’m looking for people that will rise up with me and say I will be the change here. I’m passionate about so many things, I’m looking around and I’m seeing that we need massive overhaul to food systems, school systems, clothing systems and waste disposal and recycling systems.
The solution is not homesteading and homeschooling, the solution is crying out to God for innovation to hit the earth so that we can make a difference in these areas. We need to be getting on our knees for finances and favour in order to make a difference in these areas. Someone I follow recently wrote "This earth is a dumpster fire we we need to hold on until Jesus returns.” There is no scripture saying that about the earth so I refuse to believe it. I believe that as the people of God we are held to a higher standard of how the earth is stewarded. I feel like we swing in two directions, we are completely fatalistic about how the earth will burn one day, (Just so you know, the new heaven and new earth only come after Jesus has reigned for a thousand years on this earth physically. Check Revelation 20-21) or we are completely political and whine about the politics of this earth. Politics belong to satan, government belongs to God. We are the spiritual government of God on this earth. The pioneers belong to the Lord. Come and pioneer with me. I’m at this place right now, where I feel like I’m stretching out. I don’t quite know exactly what I want or how it’s going to turn out. I just know that I can’t stay here. I can’t reside here, because it’s important to keep moving. Movement is important, and my role as a pioneer is to continue, to push ahead when it’s tough. My weaknesses have been popping up lately, and it’s making me want to crawl back into cave. This has been my normal unfortunately for many years. Disappearing when things get overwhelming. But this time, I promised myself I would keep going even if it hurts. I would get to the point that I would understand and see the people I needed to see. I would be the resource that people need. Each one of us is needed in this world, we all have value, we are all important, we all contribute in some way shape or form.
Yesterday we spent some time at the beach, way too long to be honest and I’m kind of paying for it today because the kids are tired and grumpy. I feel like this whole year I’ve been in a juggling act of trying to figure out, how to make work, how to market, how to be a mom and be present with my children, and also invest in my marriage. My toddler expressed to me today that he would like to do some schooling again soon, and I’m going how will I fit that in? How will I still have friends? Stretch, breathe, it’s complicated, but I will get there August is barely ending and it feels like autumn is trying to rush in without giving summer it’s proper finale. Although we’ve enjoyed the cool weather it feels a bit premature to be wearing our fleeces and hats, but the drop in temperature has been nice.
I picked some white sagebrush today. It’s such a beautiful plant as it comes to maturity. One of my favourite qualities about it is that it lasts throughout the winter and dries well. September is coming quickly and its always a good time to take a look at what is working, what needs work, what needs improvement. This summer I took up painting again and its been really nice to get back into painting after a 10 year break. I had been working my digital collages this year and really trying to get back into them. I finally felt that I had a breakthrough in how to display them in a way that was less sculptural, but still fulfilling. I applied to a gallery in Canmore because I thought that they would suit the gallery well, however the gallery refused my work on the basis that it was derived from photography. I was a bit disappointed but realized that if some place or person doesn’t want you, it really is a good thing because then you can focus on the places and people that do want you and those places and people will celebrate you in a proper way. It also gave me a break from creating on the computer all the time. It wasn’t until I started playing with watercolours that I realized that I missed painting. While acrylic paint is quite nice, I have had reactions to some of it, oils are messy and too smelly for the apartment, but the water-colour has managed to fit in quite nicely in my life. Its quick drying, can be picked up at any time, and cleans up fast too. I’ve been inspired lately as well about how to resource others that want to paint and you can stay posted for that content too. |